


I'll Find You in the Drift

by ohmytheon



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Sibling Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 10:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmytheon/pseuds/ohmytheon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of little one-shots depicting the sibling relationship between Yancy and Raleigh Becket and the admiration, frustration, love, and regret that Raleigh bears for his older brother. Not necessarily in chronological order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I wasn't supposed to write anything until after I read the novelization, but I couldn't wait, so I apologize for any discrepancies.

Raleigh is nine when he gets into his first fight. Gets punched right in the mouth for smarting off. A loose tooth becomes even looser. He stares at the sky, snow drifting down from grey clouds, and it’s almost enough to forget the children chanting, “Fight! Fight!” in the background. He clambers back to his feet, a circle of children coming into his view again, one tall dark-haired boy in particular.

“Want to say that again, Becket?” the boy asks.

Raleigh is nine. He has no concept of what he should and should not say - and truth be told, he probably never will. So instead he squints his eyes, feels the loose tooth with his tongue, and shrugs his shoulders. _Not really._

So he gets punched again. And again and again. In the face, in the gut, until he’s down on the ground, huddled in a ball, trying to protect his kidneys and other important organs that he will never remember the names of. The tall boy, a seventh grader, just keeps on kicking and shouting at Raleigh to get up and fight. But he doesn’t. Mostly because he’s too busy getting the shit beat out of him to have a moment to get to his feet.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I was just--”

“You were just what? Scram - all of you!”

The snow-covered tennis shoes stop assaulting Raleigh. Through his fingers, he can see the multitude of shoes leaving him, scampering into the distance and back into the school building. Slowly, he unfolds himself, fire licking every inch of his body, but as he stretches, he feels like he’s coming back to life. When he rolls onto his back and looks up, he sees a shadow in front of him, the sun behind the figure’s back bathing him like a hero, and Raleigh knows that he’s safe.

“You’re so stupid,” his brother Yancy sighs as he grabs Raleigh’s hand and pulls him to his feet.

Raleigh just smiles sheepishly and wipes away blood from his lip with his coat sleeve.

“If you’re going to keep smarting off like that and start getting into fights, little brother, you’re going to have to learn how to defend yourself,” Yancy tells him.

“I can fight,” Raleigh insists.

“Being able to take punches and kicks does not mean you can fight,” Yancy replies with a laugh, ruffling his younger brother’s equally blonde hair. “It just means that you’re good at getting the crap beat out of you. That’s not a talent you should be proud of.”

Raleigh frowns and wipes at his mouth again, the blood pouring out insistently. Yancy leads him back into the building, telling him about jabs and crosses and how he needs to duck out of the way of a fist instead of putting his face directly in its path. Raleigh tries to listen carefully, but he just can’t seem to focus, can’t seem to latch onto his brother’s voice, and just stares him in the face. Yancy is twelve years-old and he’s been in plenty of fights, all victorious as far as Raleigh is concerned. While he loves his parents, it is Yancy that he goes to whenever he is frightened by what he thinks is a monster and Yancy that makes him hot cocoa with marshmallows and Yancy that reads him bedtime stories about knights and dragons and Yancy that teaches him how to play hockey the dirty way and Yancy that tells Raleigh all sorts of jokes when he’s sick in bed.

When they reach Raleigh’s classroom, Yancy stops him and puts his hand on Raleigh’s shoulders, settling a startling serious look on the younger boy. “You’ve gotta watch what you say. Or at least think about it. That mouth is going to get you into all sorts of trouble if you’re not careful.”

“Why should I be careful?” is all Raleigh can think of to say, truly puzzled.

Yancy laughs. “This is going to be one of many, many fights you get yourself into because you don’t think first, isn’t it, little brother?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

His brother’s feet slaps hard against the wood as he runs down the dock. Raleigh hurries to catch up, but his legs are shorter and he has trouble keeping his breathing even as the distance between him and Yancy grows. “Wait!” he shouts.

But Yancy just laughs and shouts back, “Slowpoke!”

And then his brother is in the air, having leapt from the edge of the dock, tucking his legs in and holding himself into a ball before he crashes into the ocean, water shooting upwards. Raleigh comes to a near skidding halt at the very edge, waving his arms around as he fights to regain his balance. When he finally stops, he peers down, searching the dark blue water for brother, but sees nothing.

For a moment, Raleigh’s little heart seizes in his chest. What if his brother didn’t come back? What if a sea monster got a hold of his leg and was holding Yancy under the water? What if there was some sort of other world under the water that his brother got taken into when he jumped in? What if there were water zombies hiding under the seaweed and they were biting and scratching at Yancy? What if a shark was prowling the waters? What about killer whales or polar bears? Maybe there were aliens hiding in the ocean, just waiting to attack.

(Yancy clearly never should have let his four year-old brother watch all those sci-fi movies with him after their parents went to bed.)

After what feels like minutes, Raleigh can’t take it anymore and he hops around on his feet. “Yancy!”

Just then, Yancy bursts out of the water, a victorious grin on his face. He floats around for a bit, paddling with his feet, and looks up at Raleigh standing nervously on the edge of the dock. Holding his hands out, he says, “Come on, little brother. Jump on in. The water’s great!”

Raleigh gives the water another suspicious glance. “It looks cold.”

“You’re scared,” Yancy replies, realization dawning in his voice.

“I’m not scared!” Raleigh yells defiantly.

Yancy just grins again though. “You’re _scared_. Been watching too many movies.”

“M’not scared,” Raleigh mumbles, folding his arms across his chest and looking down at his feet.

The truth is, the water has always made him feel a little edgy. When he’s on land, he feels fine. He can run and jump and climb things. At just four, he can climb almost any tree, as long as he puts his mind to it. Sometimes, Yancy will have to give him a boost, but once Raleigh grabs that first limb, he’s bound the grab the next one and the one after that. He loves being high up. Loves the air and how he can see as far as can be. Yancy is already getting his first growing spurt, and he’s tall and strong. Raleigh is still short, his body unable to catch up with the height of his mind. He can’t wait to be as tall as Yancy, can’t wait to not have to climb onto his brother’s shoulders to see out of a crowd or have his father pick him up to look into a bird’s nest.

But water… Water is going down. He doesn’t mind taking baths or showers or playing with the water hose. Yancy taught him how to make his first water balloon when he was three and he loves having water fights. Swimming though is something entirely different. Raleigh never knows how to explain it when their parents take them to visit the ocean. It’s not like he can’t swim. Most kids his age are still learning, but Yancy made sure to drag him into the water and force him how to learn. And Raleigh has always been surprisingly buoyant and floats really well. But swimming is like… It’s like going _down_. It’s the opposite of climbing. Part of him knows he’s not going underground, but another part of him can’t help but feel like he’s going under instead of up. He can’t see anything down in the water, even with goggles sometimes, not like when he climbs a tree or a really tall hill and can see for what feels like forever.

“Hey, come on now, little brother,” Yancy’s voice calls to him. Raleigh glances back up to his brother and looks him in the face. There is such an earnest expression on his face that most people wouldn’t think a seven year-old is capable of. It’s the type of face that speaks to Raleigh though – that safe, comforting expression that says _I’m here_. The one that Yancy wears whenever their mom sounds like she’s coughing up a lung or their dad sometimes looks at Raleigh like he’s not even real. All Raleigh ever needs to do is look at his brother and know that he’s not alone. “Just jump in. I won’t let you drown or anything.”

So Yancy holds out his hands again and Raleigh takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, holds his nose, and jumps off the deck.

The first thing that strikes him when his feet smack the water and he slips under is that it’s bloody cold. His brother lied about that much. Raleigh kicks and flails his arms in the water in a panic until his head pushes through the surface and he gasps in as much air as his lungs can take. He wades in the water and pushes his wet hair out of his face. “I did it!” But that’s when he realizes that there’s no one around to congratulate him.

Yancy is nowhere in sight.

Raleigh bites his lip and kicks in the air, turning himself around in circles, but no he is definitely alone. He glances back up the docks, but is unable to see where his parents are sitting on the shore. “Yancy?” No response. Just the sound of the water lapping around him and hitting the wooden poles holding up the dock and birds cawing in the distance. “Yancy!”

Something abruptly tugs on his ankle and jerks him under the water. Raleigh lets out a yelp, water filling his mouth briefly, but he kicks and fights and he’s back above the water in a matter of seconds, sputtering water and coughing.

And then there is Yancy, laughing so loudly that Raleigh is pretty sure people in Russia can hear him. “You screamed like a baby!”

“That was not funny!” Raleigh cries out.

Yancy gives him a stupid smile and starts to float on his back, propping his hands behind his head, letting Raleigh know full well that Yancy thinks it was plenty funny. Raleigh doesn’t say anything back, just glowers at his older brother, and splashes him with water. Soon enough, they’re having a water fight, splashing and jumping on each other, shouting and calling one another names, laughing and cheering, until Raleigh has forgotten the whole thing and the sun is setting on them and their parents call for them to come back onshore.

Maybe the water isn’t so bad after all.


End file.
